


Happy Birthday, Brooks

by Resistance



Series: Nashville Predators [3]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M, Minnesota Wild, Nashville Predators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resistance/pseuds/Resistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My prompt was: Shea Weber accidentally seeing an intimate Zach/Ryan moment (can be emotionally intimate or sexy intimate. whatevs). I obviously ran with it in a strange direction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Birthday, Brooks

He looked at the piece of paper in his hand, trying to come up with a way to deliver it that didn't include walking into the locker room his ex-husband now shared with his affair. He wasn't actually an affair anymore, but that was how Shea would always think of him now that he knew. He had promised his son that the invitation would be hand delivered, to be sure his daddy got it in time. Brooks would be turning four, which was a big deal in his world, and yet Shea knew the party had very little to do with why his son was so insistent on him delivering the invitation himself after the game, despite the fact that the boys had spent the whole day before the game with their daddy. Brooks wanted his parents back together. 

Shea had talked to him many times, both as the little boy he was and the grown man he thought he was, but he was stubborn and determined. That was hardly surprising given either of the last names he sported. He was barely two and a half when they had separated, but Shea had overheard him many times telling his baby brothers what life had been like when their parents were married. With a few exceptions of memories that he was surprised Brooks still had, Shea was sure that most of what Brooks was ‘remembering’ was from TV or his imagination, but it was difficult to hear all the same. Shea did remember what it had been like and he missed it too. 

The scheduling gods had been especially cruel to him this season and he found himself facing his ex-husband’s team for the Predators’ home opener. He had spent all summer not looking forward to this game and trying to reason that it was good to get it over with. The press for it had been viral, they were facing the Minnesota Ryan Suters if the ads were to be believed. He tried to ignore the ads. This season was supposed to be different and better than last season. So far, it wasn't looking all that different. Certainly not better. He stared at the visitor’s locker room door for a long moment, before knocking lightly and pushing the door open. Any number of things could have been happening in that room and he would have been perfectly fine with each and every one of them. Except for the scene he walked in on. 

The room was empty save the two bodies pressed so tightly against each other that they were nearly one person. His first instinct was to back out of the room as quickly as he could, but his feet didn't move. Instead, he found himself watching them. If he could have seen nothing but the hand resting on the back facing him, he could have told which was which. There wasn't a part of Ryan he didn't know on sight. He’d had that hand on his body for seven years, he’d held that hand on numerous occasions, and he’d watched that hand pick their boys up. But now he watched that hand lazily stroke someone else’s back in a way that made Shea shiver despite his best attempts to suppress it. He heard a sigh, glad it wasn't his own, and knew right away that it didn't come from Ryan. His stomach twisted at the thought of Ryan making someone else sigh like that. 

Zach moved away just enough that he could touch Ryan’s cheek. It was a very small gesture, but the look on Ryan’s face was a dagger to Shea. Ryan didn't see him, he didn't see anyone in that room beside Zach, his smile showed that loud and clear. Ryan said something, but it was too soft for Shea to understand the words. That didn't matter, though, he knew the meaning. He’d seen that look on Ryan’s face every day for seven years. But he wasn't looking at him like that anymore and the thought hit him that even throughout all those years, he hadn't been the only man he was looking at that way. Even when he had thought those private looks had been his alone, he had been sharing them with this man. The realization was a hot coal in the pit of his stomach and yet he still didn't turn away.

The paper in his hand was suddenly heavy. He looked down at the crayon drawings. There was a banner across the top that said ‘Happy Birthday, Brooks’. Shea had spent a long time sitting at the kitchen table, helping him with each of those letters. Across the bottom there were two tall people shaped things (with skates on, since his parents always wore skate in Brooks’ drawings no matter the setting), two small people shaped things that looked identical despite the fact his brothers were not and a medium sized person shaped thing in the middle of all that attention. On the flipside of the paper, the date was written. Brooks had begged him to sit down with the Predators and Wild schedules to find a day they were both off to pick for his party. It happened there was a date a few days after his birthday that was free to both and he’d written that date on the paper. November was a long word, it took up two lines, leaving the number and year to fill the rest of the page. 

That was what Brooks wanted for his birthday, he’d said it over and over, he wanted his family together. For as many time as Shea had told him that his family was still his family, even in two different states, that was a nearly impossible concept for a three year old baby to understand. Sometimes it was hard for a twenty-eight year old adult to understand. Shea noticed that Brooks hadn't drawn his sister into the picture. His boys had seen her more than a few times, though Shea had never laid eyes on her and didn't even know her name. He didn't want to. He didn't want to think about what she meant to his ex-husband’s new relationship, though he found himself wondering if Zenon would have included her in his drawing. He pushed the thought away.

He could have interrupted the moment the two men were having, but he didn't. They had started kissing again and hadn't noticed someone had entered the room. He doubted they would notice if he burned the room down, quite frankly. He looked around at the Predators colors decorating the locker room and found himself wondering if this was the first time they had kissed in this very room. He doubted it. His mind wandered to what else they may have done, but he pushed the thought away too. He knew very well what he and Ryan had done in their locker room over seven years. Those memories made it difficult to walk into that room last season, those memories almost chased him all the way to Philadelphia, but he tried to convince himself that it was getting better this season. He didn't think about those memories as much anymore, he told himself. Maybe that was true and maybe it wasn't.

He dropped the paper on a counter near the door as he left.

**Author's Note:**

> The two little boys mentioned are fraternal twins that exist only in the fictional world we write. Ryan's daughter is real, though we don't know her name. Zenon Zajac is real. Brooks Suter is also real. His birthday is November 21st. The Wild really will face the Predators in the Nashville home opener for the 2013-14 season. 
> 
> A sequel to this is forthcoming.


End file.
